My Ceviche's Sam Gorenstein On Fish Pricing

Groupers have giant heads, which combined with neatly pressed white napkins and tasteful interiors, explain why a good piece of fish comes at a high price.

Great seafood in South Florida is as ubiquitous as bad driving, and some of the best can be had at prices as low as a few bucks. Keeping it cheap, more than anything, is about lowering overheard, developing and maintaining relationships with fisherman and not selling a species just because it's en vogue.

"When I tell people here in South Florida I'm offering yellow jack or mackerel, they look at me weird," said Sam Gorenstein, a partner at My Ceviche. "People tend to think yellow jack or mackerel are garbage fish."

Gorenstein left his job running BLT Steak in the Betsy Hotel to open a restaurant with Michael Schwartz at the Raleigh Hotel. When that fell through, Gorenstein partnered with Roger Duarte, of George's Stone Crab, to open the no-frills seafood spot on Washington Avenue.

Instead going after the 'garbage' fishermen, who make their money on volume, he went after pricier species like grouper and snapper. The reason a fish like grouper costs more, Gorenstein said, is because "grouper has a big head. You're not going to get a big yield and that's why it's more expensive."

Grouper will come off the boat costing $3.50 to $4 a pound, but that includes the head, guts and everything else that will see only the garbage can. A mackerel or kingfish, which has a smaller head and a higher yield per pound, will be bought for about $2 per pound.

And let's not forget about the role marketing plays in what we like to eat.

"Go to Whole Foods and you'll see Chilean Sea Bass," Gorenstein added. "It's an endangered species, it comes in frozen, and it doesn't taste like anything."

David Garcia, who along with his family runs the Flagler Street landmark La Camaronera, said his location is part of the reason they can dish out a bigger-than-the-plate fish fillet for $12. The other half is the relationship with a fleet of fisherman.

"We're not on Lincoln Road, we're in the middle of Little Havana," he said. "We have three boats for fish and three boats for lobster out of the Keys.

"They're independent and some of them we've been working with for 20-plus years," Garcia added, noting that those long-term relationships give him more buying power.

The same for Gorenstein: "The guys I buy my fish form are the same guys for eight or nine years. Obviously, they will sell much less expensive to me than they would to someone else."

At La Camaronera their trademark pan con minuta sandwich features a tail-on yellowtail fillet. Garcia said he also works with Corvina and that snapper is often his go-to species.

Zachary Fagenson entered the professional food world at 5:30 a.m. some time in the mid-1990s. He was 12. The place was called Bagel Boys. It was your archetypal suburban New York spot where he would help boil the day’s bagels (something like 2,000) before several hours of slicing and shmearing. Jobs in restaurants waiting tables, running food, and working kitchen prep filled the following dozen years. Zach attended the George Washington University before graduating from the University of South Florida in 2008. He became the New Times Broward-Palm Beach restaurant critic in 2012 before taking up the post for Miami in 2014. He has a penchant for Asian cuisine and its marriage of savory, sweet, sour, and spicy flavors. That blessed union can be found in Central American cuisine. When he’s not stiffening his arteries for South Florida’s greater good — and rest assured, food can be a powerful force in a city’s development — he works as a correspondent for Reuters, Politico, and Agence France-Presse.